2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear, O thou support of Raghu’s race! what Yama said in respect of Dáma, Vyála and their companions, when they besought for their liberation through his attendants in hell.
3. That Dáma and others would obtain their liberation, upon their release from their demoniac bodies by death; and upon hearing the account of their lives and actions.
4. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how, when and from what source, Dáma and others, came to learn the accounts of their lives, and in what manner they obtained their release from hell.
5. Vasishtha replied:—These demons being transformed to fishes in a pool, by the bank of the great lotus lake in Kashmere, underwent many miserable births, in their finny forms in the same bog.
6. Being then crushed to death in that marshy ground under the feet of buffaloes, they were transformed afterwards to the shapes of cranes, frequenting that lake of lotuses.
7. There they fed upon the moss and mushrooms and tender petals of lotuses, and had to live upon the leaves of aquatic plants and creepers, that floated on the surface of the waves.
8. They swung in cradles of flowers, and rested on beds of blue lotuses; and dived in vortices of the waters, or flew under the cooling showers of rainy clouds.
9. These charming cranes and herons, were at last becleansed of their brutish foulness, by their vegetable food of sweet fruits and flowers, and by their pure beverage of the crystal lake, the food of holy saints.
10. Having by these means obtained a clear understanding, they were prepared for their release from the brutish state, as men when enabled to distinguish and get hold of the qualities of satva and rajas (i.e. of goodness and virtue), from that of tamas or wrong and evil, are entitled to their liberation.
11. Now there is a city by name of Adhisthána, in the happy valley of Kashmere, which is beset by mountains and trees on all sides, and very romantic in its appearance.